The 21st Century Threesome: Me, You, and My Blog

posted 16th March 2010    Written by: Nicole Antoinette    CATEGORY: Love/Relationships, Nicole Antoinette, Season 2

It came up in bed one night, our first night actually, a night that I already liked him hard enough to not fall into sex when we were still too new as an us for it to be a good idea.

And so we talked, back and forth and all over each other until 5am, telling each other about who we are and where we’ve been and what we want from these big shiny adult lives that seem to have popped up out of nowhere.

He talked about music, I talked about food. We did big picture and small specifics and if he could have read my mind that night, he’d know that what I was really trying to do was figure out how he fit into the life I was putting everything on the line to build.

We jumped from topic to topic, mainlining each other’s details, until we finally settled into the conversation about writing. It came up naturally, on the heels of a string of thoughts about overwhelming passion, and I told him that I wanted to write more than I wanted air. He laughed in a way that said, “You’re dramatic but I get you,” and it made me blush in a way that said, “Stop but don’t.”

I told him that I write to understand myself, that I have to put it, everything, down in words and throw it out into the world before it can make sense to me.

We talked about our blogs, his much newer than mine, and I shared that living my life out loud is a sacrifice I made by accident and now couldn’t get out of if I tried. I told him it’s probably a good thing that I don’t want to try.

He fell asleep before me, arms wrapped around my body in that gentle octopus way that I always say I don’t like but secretly crave, and I thought about how gradually and unintentionally my blog really has infiltrated every single part of my life. There I was, in that bed, in that corner of town, with that breath against my ear and none of it would be happening if I didn’t write about my life on the internet.

I think about this a lot actually, about how the boundaries of offline me and online me have bled together to create a mashup version of who I am and I realize that in a lot of ways, I use my blog as a filter. The people I interact with on a daily basis are all people I’ve met through my blog, and while I like that by the time I meet them in person they have an accurate sense of what it’ll be like to have a relationship with me, I feel like I’ve forgotten how to be social without a virtual ice breaker, how to show someone who I am from the very beginning, without my blog as a crutch.

This is true with friends, but it’s even truer with dating.

Any guy who’s having a relationship with me is also having a similarly intense relationship with my blog; if he’s sleeping with me, he’s sleeping with the fact that almost everything I do winds up online, and if he’s not okay with that, it’s just not going to work.

And this is the challenging part, the delicate balancing act that’s true of all threesomes, the question of which thing I’m more attracted to, the guy or my blog, and whether it really is possible to have both at once without ruining either one.

photo credit: guldfisken

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Comments (21)

21 Responses to “The 21st Century Threesome: Me, You, and My Blog”

  • Phil Villarreal Says:
    March 16th, 2010 at 4:46 pm

    You can definitely since the joy in your writing. You are spectacular.

  • Casi Says:
    March 16th, 2010 at 5:04 pm

    I totally know what you mean Nicole. Since I moved to San Francisco, all the people I have hung out with are people I met through my blog. Sometimes it's hard for me to remember that they have already "heard" that story. Or the opposite will happen, and I just assume they know everything about me. Most of my stories start off with "did you read my post about…" Mostly because I have some crazy fear about telling people something they already know. But, I do feel the comfort in meeting people who read my blog. I know they know a bit about me, and therefore I can jump right into my crazy ass self.

  • nicoleisbetter Says:
    March 16th, 2010 at 5:31 pm

    Why thank you darling :)

  • Jamie Says:
    March 16th, 2010 at 5:34 pm

    You know how I feel about this post. Massive jealousies.

    Here's to you for having more balls than I have.

    Would a "You Go, Girl!" here be appropriate or totally lame? Lame?

    How about "GIRL POWER!"?

  • cescogar321 Says:
    March 16th, 2010 at 5:35 pm

    I absolutely love this post. You're such a passionate writer; whether you're being funny, or dramatic, or letting your mind breathe and setting things free. You are brave and it is clear that you follow your heart and really, there's not much in this world that is more inspiring than that.

    Good luck with everything – I love reading what you put out into the world. And just to end this on a cheesy note: I think when the real right guy comes around, he'll be just as in love with your blog as he is in love with you.

    All my best,
    Carolina

  • MODG Says:
    March 16th, 2010 at 5:45 pm

    totally awesome and relate-able. B came before blog though so he gets to say NO when I want to talk about his penis or something. Once I got away with it, but he was not cool about it. It's funny because now when people meet me who read my blog, they expect some FANTASTIC HUMOR IN THEIR FACES LIKE NOW. but I'm really not like that in person. It's hard melding writing me and person me into one. BUT YOU'LL SEE WHEN YOU MEET MY SUPER FACE IN ONE WEEK.

  • laurenne Says:
    March 16th, 2010 at 6:52 pm

    Hi! I'm so glad to be hearing all these comments. Thank you! I have been stuck in a weird blog-o-conundrum as well, and it's so amazing to feel less alone! Recently I decided not to give my blog out to dates because I felt guilty writing about them later. But now that I'm reading this, I say 'F that.' If I want to comment on the guy who shaves off the little triangle of his widow's peak on my blog, I should! Why should I deprive my blog readers of prime material just to save his ego? I love writing more than air as well, Nicole, and I should do it no matter what. Thank you thank you thank you for the push, for always making me laugh, and for putting it all out there.

  • nicoleisbetter Says:
    March 16th, 2010 at 7:35 pm

    I'm so excited to meet you next week I could EXPLODE. In the good and really dirty way. Or, wait. What.

  • nicoleisbetter Says:
    March 16th, 2010 at 7:36 pm

    You're so lovely Carolina, seriously, thanks so much! I think a lot of why I write publicly is because of the wonderful "me too-ness" of it all. Knowing other people understand, and get it, and have been through something similar helps me feel less alone about it all.

  • nicoleisbetter Says:
    March 16th, 2010 at 7:36 pm

    Funny, I have the massive jealousies about YOUR last post.

    GIRL POWER.

  • nicoleisbetter Says:
    March 16th, 2010 at 7:36 pm

    Sigh, I do that too. "So maybe you saw this on my blog, but…"

  • nicoleisbetter Says:
    March 16th, 2010 at 7:37 pm

    Please send me any and all quotes you love, because I'll clearly love them too.

    Also, if I kiss you, will you write about it?

    No? Not the point of this comment? Fiiiine.

  • Laura Says:
    March 16th, 2010 at 8:57 pm

    The other day some boy I was talking to in a bar asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, and without thinking I said, "A writer." I had no idea I wanted to be a writer until that moment when I said it out loud and then freaked out and tried to cover it up.

    I'm glad you're not trying to cover it up.

  • nicoleisbetter Says:
    March 16th, 2010 at 9:29 pm

    You're so incredibly welcome! Can't wait to read your stories!

  • nicoleisbetter Says:
    March 16th, 2010 at 9:30 pm

    Well as far as your comment goes, neither are you! Woo! Writing FTW!

  • gracekboyle Says:
    March 17th, 2010 at 12:25 am

    Ah! I love this post. It's so beautiful that I can understand what you're feeling and almost sense that I am there (in a non creepy way, more the way we feel when we're with someone and first divulging, learning and growing). I think the blogging/writing/online balance is interesting. It will always be interesting because it's ever-evolving and it changes, frequently.

    I suppose it depends on the person. Can you divulge it all publicly, and have the guy be down, be cool, not offended? I'm sure you've seen both. Either way, I say do what makes me keep living (if it's writing, you can't stop). I think the progression will happen naturally :)

  • Andrea Says:
    March 16th, 2010 at 5:02 pm

    I have this Chuck Klosterman quote *saved into my phone* because it's really the story of my life – ESPECIALLY my life because I don't really make any special effort to leave romance off of the blog – "By this point, I have to assume any woman who kisses me halfway expects I'll eventually write about her in some capacity, since I always do."

  • Her Says:
    March 17th, 2010 at 4:50 am

    I never really felt able to write openly on my former blogs–they were both linked to my full name, and I absolutely did not want my husband's grandmother and mother and brother and everyone else on the planet knowing such intimate details about me.

    Thanks to the encouragement of some really good blog friends, I'm able to be much more open on my new blog–or at least I am trying. It's a slow process, learning to go from divulging nothing at all to letting loose about more intimate details about my life. I know there is more I can share, and I'll get there!

    That said, I am SO glad that most of the people I meet now know me through the blog, and I don't have to go into any sort of explanation of who I am or why I write (because I love it, duh). I don't know that I would tell someone I just met about it, but really my social circle has become so intertwined with the internet!

    I still have my photo blog, so when I slip about blogging to family or friends I, I can just refer them to that one. It's a pretty easy situation!

    Also? I love this post, Nicole.

  • StaceyParadise Says:
    March 17th, 2010 at 2:01 pm

    Nicole, this is an excellent, excellent post. It's such a different style from nicoleisbetter.com. Which is not to say it's better, but I like seeing this other side of you! This post makes me do the type of thinking where I need to close my eyes and shut out the world. And I love that. I just recently went public with my blog last month, so obviously my online and offline worlds aren't quite as closely meshed together as yours. Only 2 of my friends read my blog, and my husband knows about it but hasn't read it – mostly because he's agreed to give me the space to write without self-censorship. I won't link to it on my Facebook page, because I'm so deathly afraid of the two parallels – online and offline – bleeding over into each other. It's a lot to think about, and who knows what I'll decide to do. But thanks for sharing and making me think it through.

  • Doniree Says:
    March 19th, 2010 at 5:34 am

    Uh huh. Uh huh. Yes. Please. All of it. I love you. Wow, I added no value to this conversation. Oh well – you nailed this, and I love it.

  • George Says:
    August 25th, 2010 at 11:49 am

    "if he’s sleeping with me, he’s sleeping with the fact that almost everything I do winds up online"

    That made me LOL.

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